Our technique leverages what people say in social media to find distinctive words, phrases, and topics as functions of known attributes of people such as gender, age, location, or psychological characteristics.

And the results?

Well, the researchers came up with word clouds that “provide an unprecedented window into the psychological world of people with a given trait.”

Martin Seligman, director of the Positive Psychology Center, put it this way:

When I ask myself, “What's it like to be an extrovert?” “What's it like to be a teenage girl?” “What's it like to be schizophrenic or neurotic?” or “What's it like to be 70 years old?” these word clouds come much closer to the heart of the matter than do all the questionnaires in existence.

Check out one of the word clouds, which showcases the differences between men and women’s posts, below: